Hitting the Wrong Note

Thomas Day on Church Music

The telephone voice message, from a stranger, sounds desperate: “I must
speak with you. Please call me as soon as possible. I need your help.”
I return the call and listen to a long tale of anguish and emotional suffering
that comes close to physical pain. The topic of the lament is liturgical music
in a particular Roman Catholic parish.

About thirty years ago I began to scribble commentaries on the less-than-perfect
state of music in Catholic parishes. Ever since then I have been receiving these
distress calls with their requests for some kind of advice and consolation.
Now these messages are also arriving by e-mail. The details of the complaint
will vary. Musicians might give precise descriptions of things that are wrong,
such as the parish’s musical repertory or organ pipes that do not function.
Others are not as clear about what irks them and refer only to “the loss
of the sacred” or “those people,” who are denounced as liberal
or conservative or ignorant.

My response usually begins thus: “I have heard this same story before.”
In fact, I have heard the same troubled complaint dozens of times. The details
may differ, yet the complaints always seem to come down to one source of pain:
the feeling of exile. My correspondents sense that they are being driven out
of their spiritual home—exiled—by music. What the parish calls liturgical
music seems to be part of a cultural cleansing program for the expulsion of
undesirables: them. This is a troubling development, but in the history of Christianity
it is, once again, a story that has been heard before.

A Display & A Signal

Christians, probably going back to the apostles, have always sensed that music
during worship is not just pretty sounds. It is also a way of displaying orthodoxy,
confidence, solidarity, and even a kind of territorial “ownership.”
For example, the Russian Orthodox Church and Baptist Church have developed different
creeds and theologies; at the same time, they have also developed different
music to proclaim their uniqueness. The music of one of these churches might
cause bewilderment or even anger if used for worship in the other. Unfortunately,
Christians are also capable of interpreting the different varieties of church
music as ways of signaling which socio-economic or ethnic group is in charge
or which group does not belong.

I sometimes ask my troubled correspondents to ponder for a moment the music
of youth culture. For generations, maybe centuries, youth culture has used certain
music as an internal coded language that ratifies the values of that culture
and establishes a territory where the uncomprehending outsiders do not belong.
Then I ask my correspondents to ponder the shops and malls that play classical
or old popular music in order to drive away loitering youths and drug dealers.
After such pondering my distressed telephone correspondents begin to realize
that they are not hallucinating; music can, indeed, be a method of expulsion.

Roman Catholicism, as James Joyce put it, might be described as, “Here
comes everybody.” The Church has tried to make clear that worship is for
everybody: rich, poor, and every ethnic group. In the past and in Western culture,
the Church’s system for bringing in everybody was the Latin language and
liturgical music that was not identified as the property of one particular ethnic
group. It is true that Latin-rite congregations east of the Rhine had a long
folk tradition of singing vernacular songs while the priest quietly celebrated
what was called the Low Mass. But the Church of “Here comes everybody”
could always claim that there was also a repertory of Latin liturgical music
that belonged to this everybody.

That arrangement (praising God in a universal song but sometimes in a local
vernacular song) began to break down centuries ago. Today, it is close to extinction
in many parts of the world. My correspondents suffer because they are subjected
to a liturgical music that seems to be militantly local, with a message that
sounds like this: “Here comes us, we are the ascendant group—and
if you are not us, go away.”

Who is this us? According to my correspondents, us can be found among the nicest
people—from the fiercely conservative to the New Age Catholics who have
drifted into a kind of Christian pantheism. When they assemble at prayer, they
all have one thing in common: individuals who assume the role of strong leaders.
These leaders will be members of the clergy or musicians who reassure, motivate,
inspire, gather, and essentially control the assembled faithful (usually by
means of excessive amplification of their voices).

A strong leader priest may be a very pleasant person who seems to be conducting
the congregation on a tour of a stately mansion. Occasionally, he may be much
more intrusive. (A correspondent told me about the priest who began a Liturgy
by telling everyone to turn to the individuals around them and ask each one:
“What is your favorite dessert?” And that was only the beginning.)

A strong leader musician might be classified as one of those sins that cry
to heaven for vengeance. My correspondents tell me stories about these super-amplified
soloists who make many souls in the congregation want to run for the exits.

My own recent story is about a middle-aged pop-style minister of music who
crooned, at a Mass on Christmas day, one familiar carol after another into a
microphone, while his back-up group moaned vowel sounds in harmony. A congregation
of about 300, overpowered by this display of his heartfelt faith witness, remained
absolutely silent during every song. (“Silent Night” was given new
meaning.) I could not quite understand what the song dispenser wanted, but it
was clear that, in his opinion, he represented strong leadership at its finest,
and if you had a problem with that, you could go elsewhere.

Odd Complications

Some readers will interrupt at this point and admonish: We must return to
Gregorian chant . . . We must restore the sacred . . .
good taste. Others will insist that we must scrap everything and replace it
with the contemporary music of X or Y or a hot new group.

It is not so simple. There are many odd complications that make it difficult
to generalize about what encourages exile and what does not. For example, I
have heard about surly adolescents who frown on all music except songs produced
by their favorite group (perhaps named something like the Chain Saw Murder Gang)
but who eagerly learnt to sing Gregorian chant or a Renaissance composition.
Some of my musically sophisticated correspondents report feeling very much at
home at a Liturgy with plain unaccompanied singing that had absolutely no artistic
aspirations. Some Catholics who cannot understand a word of Spanish feel welcomed
by liturgical music that has a Latino influence.

I may put this recorded message on my voice mail, just for callers who despair
about the liturgical music they must endure: “The root cause of your complaint
is probably not music but someone who believes that worship is a meeting of
the like-minded who have come together to be molded by a strong leader. Perhaps
the only solution (long range) is a rediscovery of worship that at least attempts—in
our imperfect human way—to be universal, catholic, and for all kinds of
people who have come together in joy.

“Wherever that is in place, those strong leaders, restrained by humility,
will let the faithful alone; the liturgical music—whatever form it takes—will
be organic, make sense, and cause minimum discontent. This is a recording. Thank
you.”

Thomas Day is chairman of the music department at Salve
Regina University and the author of several books, including Why Catholics
Can’t Sing: The Culture of Catholicism and Triumph of Bad Taste
(Crossroad). “Hitting the Wrong Note” is reprinted with permission
from The Tablet (The
Tablet, 1 King Street Cloisters, Clifton Walk, London W6 OQZ Great Britain).

“Hitting the Wrong Note” first appeared in the July/August 2002 issue of Touchstone. If you enjoyed this article, you'll find more of the same in every issue.

Letters Welcome: One of the reasons Touchstone exists is to encourage conversation among Christians, so we welcome letters responding to articles or raising matters of interest to our readers. However, because the space is limited, please keep your letters under 400 words. All letters may be edited for space and clarity when necessary. letters@touchstonemag.com